The Potter's wedding had really been the only excuse Esme and Regulus had gotten to leave the house. At the start of 1980, the two of them had spent nearly an entire year cooped up together in various safe houses.

Sirius had been with them most of the time and had recently taken up going out for hours at a time on his new motorcycle in order to get a change of scenery.

Regulus and Esme too had picked up a new hobby which saw them spending most of their days taking cares of the various new plants they were now trying to grow. As it turned out, Regulus had a knack for caring for magical plants and Esme was particularly adept at pointing at the plants and declaring that they looked to be wilting.

"If that thing bites me again, we're getting rid of it." Esme complained as she pointed over at the Fanged Geranium sitting on the table - the newest plant they were trying to master growing.

Regulus looked at the numerous potted plants lining the counters in the kitchen. "Do you think perhaps this is getting out of hand?" He asked, "I'm not sure there's room for all of them anymore."

"Stick them in your brother's room." She replied, sitting down at the table to resume writing her letters.

The two of them had been keeping in regular contact with Piper, Dirk, and Levi over the past months. Piper was still working at the Kelpie reserve and had recently started discretely dating one of the girls she worked with. Dirk was apprenticing at the Ministry of Magic in the Goblin Liason Office. Levi and Dirk were renting a small apartment together in London, and Levi had recently started working in the British and Irish Quidditch League headquarters and was hoping to become a commentator for the League.

Needless to say, they all had a lot more going on than Esme and Regulus - particularly now that their families were being closely monitored by the Aurors.

Whilst things for the couple had gotten somewhat mundane over the past few weeks, that was abruptly interrupted by a sudden knock on the door.

"Did Sirius forget his key again? If he's not careful, I'll transfigure him into a front door key." Esme said.

Regulus finished watering the last of the plants and replied, "Well if he was a key then he wouldn't be able to leave the house. Then he wouldn't get locked out at all."

"Smarty pants." She muttered as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head before leaving to answer the front door.

But as he opened the door, he was more than a little surprised to see who was stood opposite him. Before Regulus even had the chance to speak, the person on the doorstep had barged past him into the house, and hurriedly their way through the hallway to the kitchen at the end of the hallway.

"Shut the door!" They snapped back to him.

Regulus blinked quite heavily for a moment, then did as he was told and closed the front door.

As he walked into the kitchen, he saw Esme hadn't so much as looked up from the letters she was writing.

"You'd be a bloody useless Auror." Regulus remarked.

Esme lifted her gaze to stare at Regulus in confusion, and then turned her head and locked eyes with Severus Snape.

"Oh bloody hell." She stood up, "What are you doing here? How they hell did you know where to find us?"

"Black told me." Snape explained shortly, still panting heavily.

Upon closer inspection, the greasy-haired boy was flushed red and out of breath. His hair, normally slicked back, was skewed outwards at all angles and his cloak had fallen off one of his shoulders in his hurry to get to the house.

"What happened to you?" Esme asked as she pulled out another chair at the kitchen table for Snape to sit at.

The boy in question took a few more moments to catch his breath before he pleaded, "You've got to listen to this, now!"

Regulus closed the kitchen door as he questioned, "What is it?"

"There's a prophecy!"

Esme raised an eyebrow, "A prophecy? Who are you? Jesus?"

"Esme." Regulus held his hand out to signal for the girl to hush while he further asked, "What prophecy? What's going on?"

Snape ran a hand through his hair, combing it back and smoothing it out over his head as he explained, "I-we... Ignatius and I, we were in Hogsmeade. We were passing by the Hog's Head Inn when we saw Dumbledore going inside. I tried to convince Ignatius to leave but he said it was too good an opportunity to miss. He wanted us to eavesdrop on what was going on in the pub."

"This story is boring already." Esme muttered under her breath as she sat back down at the table and Regulus moved to stand beside her, resting his hand on her shoulder.

"Dumbledore was meeting with the woman, but neither of us could make out who it was. She was telling this prophecy to him though. I-I don't... I don't know if we heard all of it; we were interrupted when we got caught and one of the owners threw us out but... I can't-Avery," Snape turned to the girl, urgent despair haunting his eyes, "Are you pregnant?"

Regulus felt his stomach drop and his heart leap up into his throat.

For a minute, he almost felt like he was going to be sick.

This was quickly washed away as Esme started to snicker and then burst into outright laughter. "Pah!" She exclaimed, "That's funny, tell another joke."

"I'm serious!" Snape stood up, then panicked slightly as he came face to face with the much taller Regulus Black and sat back down again.

"Are you pregnant?" He asked again.

Esme chuckled lightly again, placed a hand over Regulus' on her shoulder, and confidently answered, "No. Though I don't see what that has to do with anything. Why do you care?"

"The prophecy!" Snape cried out, "It said: the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... After then it got difficult to make out what was being said."

Regulus and Esme turned to look at each other.

Shattering the tense silence that had blanketed the room, Regulus asked her, "How many times have we defied the Dark Lord?"

She thought and slowly replied, "Well... I guess when we helped the Bagman's and others escape the Death Eaters was one. The, um... Cave... Was two. I suppose running away from the Death Eaters might be three? I don't really know."

"So..." Snape waited for further explanation.

Esme rolled her eyes, "I'm still not three months pregnant. It's not about us."

"The prophecy predicts a baby born at the end of July that will defeat the Dark Lord? Surely a baby can't manage that if Dumbledore can't. Do we have to wait for this baby to grow up? That could be years." Regulus' mind was running away with itself and countless thoughts swarmed in his head.

Esme shook her head, "There's more important things to discuss here... Why are you here?"

"Because you guys are trying to help me, and I thought the prophecy could be about you so I wanted to warn the both of you." He explained.

"No, not that." She shook her head again, "What did you and Ignatius do after you got kicked out? What did he say? Where is he?"

Snape took a deep breath before further explaining, "I-I couldn't tell him the truth, obviously, - I couldn't tell Ignatius that I want to stop the Dark Lord and I needed to warn you guys about the prophecy."

"So what did you do?" She asked.

"We had to go see the Dark Lord. Ignatius told him everything. The second we left I rushed here to warn to two. I don't know what your brother did after that."

Then, Regulus remembered.

It was as if his jumbled thoughts had suddenly cleared and it dawned on him. His throat dried up as the gravity of what he knew settled in on him.

"Um... We do actually know someone who's about three or four months pregnant." He croaked our slightly, clapping his hand over his chest to clear out his throat.

Esme turned to him, frowning in confusion.

Then she too remembered.

"Oh..." Her jaw slowly fell open.

"Who?" Snape asked, "Who is it?"

Esme's gaze fell down to the floor as Regulus explained, "Lily Potter is pregnant."

Snape had been pale before, but the new paleness that washed over him was almost deathly. His eyes darkened so you could barely see into them, and his mouth hung hopelessly open.

An icy cold feeling gripped his whole body but his heart was beating at a million miles an hour as that name... That one name repeated itself over and over and over again in his head.

Lily Potter.

Lily Potter.

Lily Potter was pregnant.

Lily Potter was pregnant.

"Severus..." Regulus temporarily snapped him out of his nightmare, "Are you alright?"

Several minutes rolled by before Snape replied, through a hoarse, trembling voice, "Yes, I'm fine."